Atlanta councilman Mitchell robbed at gunpoint

By ERIC STIRGUS and ALYSE KNORR

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta city Councilman Ceasar Mitchell said Sunday he will continue to push for more police officers to walk the beat and for other public safety improvements after three thieves stole his sport utility vehicle at gunpoint early Saturday.

Mitchell is the second City Council member since May to report being the victim of a crime. In May, City Council President Lisa Borders was sleeping in the upper level of her Centennial Place town home when suspects kicked in a glass door downstairs.

Both Mitchell and Borders are campaigning in the midst of an election season where crime is a clear issue — Mitchell is running for council president and Borders is running for mayor.

“Hopefully, this is an opportunity for us to come together as a city to become more serious about public safety,” said Mitchell, who said his home was burglarized in the past year. “We cannot stand on the sidelines on this issue.”

The councilman said in a telephone interview he had just walked his mother into her Washington Park home after attending a concert shortly after midnight, when three young men approached him, demanding his green 2003 Ford Expedition.

Mitchell, who is running for City Council president, said one of the men pulled out a gun, pointed it upward and fired the weapon.

The councilman handed over the keys to his vehicle and the thieves quickly drove away into the night as Mitchell’s mother and other neighbors came out their homes on the 1000 block of Lena Street to find out what was going on.

Police later found Mitchell’s vehicle nearby in another part of northwest Atlanta, near Joseph E. Boone and Joseph Lowery boulevards. No arrests had been made by Sunday afternoon. The councilman said police did not give him any indication if the thieves were part of the same crew that shot and killed former boxing champ Vernon Forrest late Saturday in southwest Atlanta.

Mitchell, 40, the son of a former Atlanta police officer, said Saturday’s crime has further emboldened him to urge police officials to put more officers in the Red Dog Unit, which aggressively attacks crime in neighborhoods with large levels of drug activity. The councilman said he will continue his plea for more officers on foot patrols, saying a cop may have prevented the theft if one was walking the beat in the area.

Mitchell also said the crime shows the city must do more to help young people. The councilman sponsors classes that prepare high school students for college entrance exams.

“We’ve got to continue to be serious about our young people,” Mitchell said.

Public safety is one of the biggest campaign issues of this election, said Harvey Newman, chair of Georgia State University’s Department of Public Management and Policy.

“This election, the hot-button issues are the budget and crime,” he said.

The unions representing Atlanta’s firefighters and police officers last Thursday held a debate with four of the leading mayoral candidates during which the men and women spoke on public safety.

Borders, who has declared herself the “poster child of crime” after seeing break-ins of both of her Atlanta homes during the past year, has focused on police officer retention, saying she wants to work on a housing program that allows more cops to become homeowners in the city.

Councilwoman Mary Norwood has come up with a 12-point public safety plan that calls for increasing Atlanta’s police force by 10 percent, which currently equates to about 165 officers, and put more cops on patrol.

State Sen. Kasim Reed wants to add 750 officers to the force and earlier this year proposed a referendum that would allow voters the option of raising their taxes to pay for more officers and firefighters.

Candidate Jesse Spikes, a partner at the law firm McKenna, Long & Aldridge, says he wants to improve the city’s finances to help pay for public safety improvements.